ny, I could quickly make myself
master of it. This peculiarity of mind passed by me unnoticed at the
time; I knew and understood too little, nay, indeed, almost nothing of
myself as yet, even as regards the actions of my every-day life.

A second occupation of this prison period was the preparation of an
exercise (or academical thesis) in geometry, which I undertook that I
might the sooner obtain an independent position in some profession.

Thirdly, I studied Winckelmann's "Letters on Art." Through them some
germs of higher artistic feeling may have been awakened within me; for I
examined the engravings which the work contains with intense delight. I
could quite perceive the glow of pleasure that they aroused, but at the
time I took little account of this influence, and indeed the feeling
for art altogether was late in developing itself in me. When I now
glance over the earlier and later, the greater and smaller, artistic
emotions which have swayed me, and observe their source and direction, I
see that it was with arts (sculpture as well as music) as it was with
languages--I never succeeded in accomplishing the outward acquisition of
them: yet I now feel vividly that I, too, might have been capable of
something in art had I had an artistic education.

Further, there came into my hands, during the time of my imprisonment, a
bad translation of an abridgment of the Zendavesta. The discovery [in
these ancient Persian Scriptures] of similar life-truths to our own, and
yet coupled with a quite separate religious standpoint from ours,
aroused my attention, and gave some feeling of universality to my life
and thought; this, however, disappeared as quickly as it had come.

By the beginning of the summer term in 1801 I was at length set free
from arrest. I at once left Jena and my academical career, and returned
to my father's house. I was just nineteen years old. It was but natural
that I should enter my parents' house with heavy heart, overclouded
soul, and oppressed mind. But spring warmed and awakened all nature once
more, and recalled to life, too, my slumbering desire for better things.

As yet I had busied myself but little with German literature, and the
names of Schiller, Goethe, Wieland, and the rest I now, for the first
time, began to learn. In this, too, it was with me as in so many other
things; any mental influence that came before me I had either to fully
interweave with my inner life, or else altogether to fore